


Gordian Knot

by oilslickrainbow



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11802936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oilslickrainbow/pseuds/oilslickrainbow
Summary: Sometimes complex problems require unorthodox solutions.





	Gordian Knot

Dan Dreiberg isn't a brave man. When he puts on a costume, he can pretend he is, but that's all it is – pretending. Even with the costume on, he isn't brave enough to tell his violent, intimidating, genophobic and homophobic partner how he feels about him. He longs, and he dreams about it and wakes up in a cold sweat, and he longs, and he writes letters and tears them up and he longs. Finally, after years of wanting and needing, he's almost ready. Almost.

Then someone braver than him comes along and beats him to the punch. Someone effortlessly cool and composed who can do what Dan couldn't and do it without breaking a sweat. Someone charming, confident and brazen who learns and does more in one night of patrol than Dan has in seven years of partnership. It makes him sick. He has nothing to do with all the courage he was saving up except confront the man.

It doesn't go the way he expected.

Adrian is even more charming than Dan believed a person could be and even more handsome than he remembers him being. It turns out that – unlike Dan – Adrian isn't the jealous type. It turns out that Rorschach isn't either and that he's far more open-minded than Dan realized. When they ask him to join them he can't say no.

Three's a crowd but that's not a bad thing. It just means there's no room for fear and no room for jealousy. It takes a while for Dan to get used to the arrangement, but once he has, he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
